hey everyone welcome to this special episodes of tools of the trade where I explore the tools that
a lot of Growers use or a lot of Growers should be using and this time we're looking at a tool that
not that many people know about and we're talking about Greenhouse automation systems specifically
one that I've been using for many years develop here in Quebec Canada by ovisha we'll go through
the motion of really understanding why automating Greenhouse systems is important and secondly
going through that tool specifically and looking at the key features that make it
really and honestly one of the most valuable tool that you can have in your pocket [Music]
so greenhouses are a big part of successful Market gardening you know when a greenhouse
you can grow crops really earlier you can grow them really later in the season you can get a
lot more yields when you're growing crops like tomatoes peppers eggplants cucumbers these are
heat loving crops that are the real money makers and that are the crowd Pleasers at
farmers market and in CSA baskets and so having a greenhouse equates more yields more production
and often better quality and the reason is you get the control the temperature you get
to control somewhat the humidity and you get to control irrigation you have control over
all the parameters that make successful growing when you grow into this trade you're likely to
have one Greenhouse another one and another one and it becomes an evolutionary step as you get
more client as you get more cash flow buy more greenhouses and all of this can be kept in a
small piece of land and the trick to make this a successful Endeavor is always to grow better not
bigger to learn how to work with your greenhouses to just grow more yields on smaller pieces of
land and so for this to happen you need to have an understanding of four parameters temperature
ventilation humidity and irrigation these are the four parameters that you need to manage
and the fifth one which is what we're introducing today is how to control these in a systematic way
that makes it efficient and perhaps that makes it even more profitable and productive so number one
heating heating greenhouses is simpler said than done obviously when we're in a Norton climate like
ours there's a lot of good reasons why you want to heat in the spring and in the fall but when
you're growing crops like Greenhouse tomatoes and you want to get optimal yield you're also heating
the greenhouse in the summer you are setting parameters of optimal temperature ranges for
the crop to really grow and really get the perfect yields so common setting measures for Greenhouse
is three hours after Sunrise you're kicking in some heat so that the crop can really really
speed up its growth and you'll be stopping some of it at the end of the day because you want the
plant to really chill out for the night and that's where having a climate controller really makes a
big difference because the climate controller can read the outside temperature the light
availability you can set some parameters according to the stage of the plant and then the the climate
controller can really adjust and adapt for optimal conditions of the plant at that specific time
this is a major Game Changer because you're going from analog to digital and it has a huge impact on
the growth of the plant so just like heating is so critical to Greenhouse success ventilation which
is the flip side is just as important in an analog kind of fashion you're opening the Roll-Ups during
the morning closing them at night and that's it and when I started Market gardening before I got
more into real Greenhouse practices and real productivity that was my measure the problem
with having a simple control like that is first of all the green the Roll-Ups are not adjusting to
the temperatures that are inside the greenhouse if you want to be ventilating optimally the Roll-Ups
should be always opening and closing regarding the set points that you're putting into the greenhouse
foreign [Music] start to have more greenhouses or tunnels and you have one Greenhouse with two
Roll-Ups and another one with two others and another one with two others it becomes a lot
of work to manually open and close all these Roll-Ups and so that's really one area where
having a climate controller makes a big difference [Music] so all in all if you
look at climate control there's there's good reasons why you want to get there more yields
better quality less susceptibility to diseases and less susceptibility to certain insects okay just
overall better quality because you're managing the environment in the optimal way for the plants and
to get to that point the climate controller is really the tool to do that otherwise it's nearly
it's nearly impossible to get to Optimal range all the time the beauty with a tool like orisha
is that it's in your pocket it's on a smartphone and you can manage all these set points really
easily and that's what we're going to explore in the third episode but before we get there in the
second episode of this jewels of the trade we're gonna talk about humidity how to manage that and
also Irrigation in the greenhouses because these are all also very important features
that you need to control if you're going to get optimal yield in your greenhouses [Music]
so that's it for this video on Greenhouse automation when I reflect upon you know my
first days in Market gardening when I would open up the Roll-Ups of all my greenhouses and hoop
houses it's a lot of work it's a lot to think about not for them to overheat so automation is
a great great great move forward it might not be for all the market gardeners that are starting it
might be a level up kind of thing but it's always good to have that in mind and I'm really happy
that my greenhouses are fully automated right now it's an investment that I appreciate speaking of
which I'm giving you workshops On Tools you can check out the information on the link below it's
a free workshop and it's not just about tools that could be game changers that can really help level
up your game but it's also about sometimes not buying tools too quickly so the right tool in
the right timing what's the sequence there that's the workshop that I'm giving all the information
is on the link below thanks for checking it out JM out see you next time friends [Music]